Liberman ally faces test in Arad elections

Arad will become the final city in the country to hold municipal elections Tuesday.

Avigdor Liberman 370.
(photo credit:reuters)

Arad will become the final city in the country to hold municipal elections
Tuesday, when incumbent mayor Tali Ploskov faces off against candidates Nisan
Ben-Hamo and Moshe Edri.

Ploskov, who is close to Foreign Minister
Avigdor Liberman, beat seven candidates to become mayor three years ago. The
election is being held three months after other municipalities, due to a
technicality related to the city’s former management by an Interior Ministry
appointed acting mayor before Ploskov’s election.

The election is seen as
a vote of confidence in Ploskov’s performance as well as in Liberman, in a
contest in which Edri is connected to Likud and Ben-Hamo with Yesh
Atid.

Liberman visited the city recently with Hollywood producer Arnon
Milchen and promised a Hollywood- style movie studio would be built
there.

A poll sponsored by Ploskov predicted she would win 60 percent of
the vote, but her opponents believe the election is very much up for grabs.
Forty percent of the vote is needed to prevent a run-off race between the top
two finishers.

Ploskov made aliya more than 20 years ago from Moldova,
with two children and ten dollars in her pocket. She started working cleaning
hotel rooms. She then rose to become a banker, a job in which she met many
residents and learned about their problems.

Her main achievements are an
NIS 70 million facelift of the city in which parks, traffic circles, and
sidewalks were built, the city’s main shopping plaza renovated, and its
community center expanded. The percentage of students who passed matriculation
tests rose significantly and the city’s library won a national award.

She
is one of only four female mayors in the country, along with the mayors of
Netanya, Ganei Tikva, and the Bnai Shimon Regional Council.

Ben-Hamo, 39,
is a businessman who has worked with international hi-tech companies. Learning
from his party leader, Finance Minister Yair Lapid, he is holding a parlor
meeting Monday that will be broadcast live on Facebook.

Edri is a veteran
Likud politician who has run for Arad mayor multiple times.